Martha Stewart to be Released this Friday after Five Months Behind Bars

Drug Policy Alliance Applauds Stewart for Adding Her Influential Voice to the Growing Movement Calling for Alternatives to the War on Drugs <br> In Her Holiday Message, Martha Stewart Urged Americans to Reform Drug Laws

Tony Newman at (646) 335-5384 or Elizabeth M

This Friday, Martha Stewart will be released after serving five months behind bars. While incarcerated, she came in contact with people whose lives had been destroyed by the war on drugs. In her December 22nd holiday message, Stewart made an impassioned plea for drug policy reform. "I beseech you all [...] to encourage the American people to ask for reforms, both in sentencing guidelines, in length of incarceration for nonviolent first-time offenders, and for those involved in drug-taking," she wrote.

"Martha Stewart has joined the growing club of prominent Americans whose experience behind bars has allowed them to see, up close, the injustice and absurdity of the war on drugs," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. "One only wishes that many more Americans, especially those of wealth and prominence, could come to the same conclusions - without having to serve time."

Other prominent Americans who were incarcerated and have since become advocates for drug policy reform include former Arizona Supreme Court Justice and Associate U.S. Attorney General Webb Hubbell, former Nixon aide Chuck Colson, Congressman Dan Rostenkowski, former Pennsylvania Attorney General Ernest Preate, former California Assemblyman Pat Nolan and former New York Court of Appeals Justice Sol Wachtler.